Iron Queen
Regina Ferrum, also commonly known as the Iron Queen, is a villainous character in Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog universe. She is a talented techno-mage, meaning that she can exert magical control over electronic machines. She uses these abilities to mentally command all manner of electronics such as computers, robots, cybernetics and nanotechnology. History Early life Regina was born into an order of technomancers based in the Overlander city of Mega Central. She became a talented practitioner at a young age, soon learning to manipulate robotsover distances. By the time she reached maturity, Magitek was outlawed in the Overlands and all members of Regina's order were arrested. While her elders were executed, the still young Regina was allowed to live but was banished from the Overlands. With no knowledge of any other technomage cults in the Overlander cities and with the Great War having recently begun, Regina wandered aimlessly across Mobius. Realizing she was the last member of her cult, she decided that Magitek would survive through her and eventually consume and dominate the world. Eventually finding her way to the Dragon Kingdom, she pledged her allegiance to a local warlord, Jun Kun, realizing through him she could rise to power. Following this, the two worked together as warlords in the region. As the partner of Jun Kun, she used her technomagic to awaken dormant machines and aid him in his conquest of the Dragon Kingdom. Unfortunately, their efforts were usually crushed by the warring Clans or the free people they wanted to control, thus, they were unable to get a foothold in the region. This changed when Dr. Ivo Robotnik came to the region, hoping to spread his tyranny beyond Mobotropolis. Regina convinced him to use herself and Jun Kun as his Sub-Bosses in the region, and thus she and Jun Kun became the Iron Queen and Iron King respectively. Robotnik supplied them with weapons and technology, which enabled the two to gain control over the free peoples of the Dragon Kingdom. However, the four clans decided to fight them harder having learned they received aid from Dr. Robotnik. This prevented them from achieving dominance in the region. Sub-Boss in the Dragon Kingdom Despite their inability to conquer the warring clans, the Iron Queen and Iron King managed to oppress many of the free peoples of the Dragon Kingdom. When the citizens of Stormtop Village refused to accept them as their leaders, the Iron Queen used her magic to set Mount Stormtop ablaze, refusing to lift the spell until the villagers agreed to bow to their leadership. For over one hundred days Mt. Stormtop remained on fire, causing the villagers to have to ration their water. When the Iron Queen discovered the presence of Sonic and Tails, she used her technomagic to possess Monkey Khan and controlled him to attack the two heroes. Although she nearly succeeded in having Khan kill Sonic, her control over him ended when Tails damaged her magic staff. She then fled the scene, returning to the Iron Fortress. Sonic, Tails and Monkey Khan pursued her, and after making their way into the Iron Fortress, Sonic managed to obtain the Fan of Fen Xing, which he used to defeat the Iron King. Sonic later used the fan to put out the flames of Mt. Stormtop, at which point Regina swore revenge and flew off. When the Eggman Empire was formed, Regina and Jun Kun continued their roles as regional Sub-Bosses though now under the rule of Dr. Eggman. They continued their fight against the four clans, along with Monkey Khan and the local Freedom Fighter cell. At some point in time, Regina used her magitek powers to take control of Monkey Khan once again, and used him to dispose of the Dragon Kingdom Freedom Fighters, apparently leaving none of its members left alive. Power Play In 3237, Regina responded to Snively, who was doing a routine checkup on all of the Sub-Bosses around Mobius. Revealing the problems of local resistance to him, the two found a common bond. After chatting over the Eggnet for some time, the two became romantically attracted to one another and began planning to meet up and overthrow Dr. Eggman together. Hoping to turn the tides in their favour and finally secure domination in the Dragon Kingdom, Regina went before the Bride of Rich Nights and attempted to bribe her with riches. After Rich Nights refused to accept any bribe, Regina had Jun Kun murder her, though she took the credit for this in order to ensure she became the new bride of the Yagyu Clan. With the Yagyu under her control, she used its ninjas to randomly aid the various clans from time to time during the Clan Wars while spreading rumors that the clans were joining the Iron Dominion. This troubled the other clan brides, and they soon swore allegiance to the Iron Dominion. With the opposition removed, Regina sought to expand the control of the Iron Dominion when she learned of the declining state of Dr. Eggman from Snively. Instead of consolidating their power in the Dragon Kingdom, which Jun Kun desired, Regina set off with him, the Bride of Conquering Storm and the Yagyu Clan to usurp the Eggman Empire, having received word from Snively that Eggman was on the verge of collapse. After Eggman lost his sanity completely following his defeat by Sonic, Regina and her forces made their move. Once the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix left the area, Regina and her Yagyu Clan forces, who had arrived via dirigible, were greeted by Snively and the Dark Egg Legion, and set up their base of operations at the Eggdome. Queen of the Eggman Empire Regina's plans were revealed as she learned that New Megaopolis was in ruins and only the Eggdome was operational, calming the Iron King down as he questioned the reason why they took over the Eggman Empire. Dimitri later appealed his case of requiring the removal of the explosives in the cybernetics. As Regina claimed to be unable to remove them, she had Snively give him a briefcase that she said contained microchips that would neutralize the explosives, and though he accepted them Dimitri appeared suspicious of her claims. In a somewhat romantic moment with Snively, she revealed that she planned to crush the Freedom Fighters in New Mobotropolis, dispose of the Iron King and rule the world with Snively. The next day, Regina and Snively went to New Mobotropolis to demonstrate how powerful she was. Managing to enter the city before it's shield could be raised by NICOLE (thanks to Regina's powers tampering with the nanites), she then used her Magitek abilities to take control of Bunnie D'Coolette. Forcing her to fight her own teammates, Regina was surprised when Monkey Khan arrived on the scene after saving the drained Bunnie's life. While she distracted Khan, Snively snuck up from behind and removed his Power Ring crown, this exposing him to Regina's powers. She then used her Magitek to assume control of Monkey Khan for the second time, ordering him to "Burn the city to the ground." She then made him attack the members of the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix. Sonic returned and, while fighting Khan, Regina told him that her "control is absolute" and that he destroyed the Dragon Kingdom Freedom Fighters while Snively broke his Power Ring crown so Sonic couldn't use it to help Khan, forcing him to get another Power Ring and break the queen's hold over him. Still, Regina was pleased in believing their resolve had been broken and they had lost faith in Khan, and they returned to New Megaopolis. The following day, upon learning Dr. Eggman escaped, Regina seethed that she would not allow her plans to be foiled by him. After dispatching Conquering Storm to keep the other clans in the Dragon Kingdom in line, Regina set out with the Iron King, Dark Egg Legion and Yagyu to recapture Dr. Eggman. They arrived just in time to find the mad despot in the custody of Sonic and Tails, whereupon Regina ordered they both surrender. To her frustration, Sonic instead engaged the Iron Dominion while Tails dragged Dr. Eggman back to New Mobotropolis, and Regina ordered the Iron King to finish the fight. After he knocked Sonic down, Regina hoped that the hedgehog would prove a valuable bargaining chip in exchange for Dr. Eggman, but the Freedom Fighters arrived as reinforcements. They managed to damage the Iron King's armor and destroyed Regina's & Snivley's Egg Mobiles before retreating to New Mobotropoils. The Iron Dominion gave chase but NICOLE activated the shield, keeping them out, while Monkey Khan and Bunnie taunted that the Iron Dominion's victory blew up in their face. Regina swore revenge before taking her forces back to New Megaopolis. Later Snively visited Regina's bed chambers to comfort her. Her response was that if he ever wanted to enter her chambers again, he must find a way past the shield over New Mobotropolis and slammed the door on him. That evening she promoted Lien-Da to the position of Grandmaster after learning Dimitri had reportedly fled. After hearing of Jun's failure to the city's shield generator at Robotropolis the next day, Regina scorned him and Snively before retiring to her chambers once again. She later allowed Snively into her chambers briefly when he proposed a means to get past New Mobotropolis' shields. Delighted at the knowledge that she could possess NICOLE and the city's nanites with her technomagic, she assembled the Dark Egg Legion and Yagyu Clan to prepare for an attack on the city. When they arrived outside the city, Regina used her technomagic on NICOLE and had her new pawn drop the city's shields to begin the invasion. Despite taking the city, the Iron Queen became aware of Sonic and Sally entering it's system via the Particle-To-Light Organizer & Transporter Device at Freedom HQ in the hopes of getting NICOLE back on their side, and fought Sonic as a gigantic avatar using her staff despite Snively's distractions. Eventually, Iron NICOLE informed her queen the intruders had been purged from the system, unaware NICOLE was liberated from her technomagic, nor that Sonic and Sally merely returned to the real world. With the occupation nearly complete, she and the Iron King later oversaw a public Legionization process in New Mobotropolis' coliseum,using it as a trap to lure the remaining Freedom Fighters out into the open. At first it seemed to work when Amy, Antoine and Geoffrey St. John burst onto the scene and were soon overwhelmed, but at that moment Sonic, Sally, Tails, and Monkey Khan made an explosive return into the city. Downfall As the heroes assembled against the queen, she attempted to order NICOLE to take them down, only for her to imprison the Iron Queen in a orb and reveal her true colours, much to the Queen's shock. However, she broke out using her Magitek, and used the nanites around her to form a mech to battle NICOLE with. Soon, after the Yagyu left the city (having been told by Khan that they were free of the Dominion), she was even more shocked when Lien-Da rallied the Legion against her, and after a failed attempt to control them, malevolently detonated the bomb in Lien-Da's cybernetics, critically injuring her. After the Dark Egg Legion retreated to the Eggdome, the queen was left alone to fight against the Freedom Fighters, who demanded her surrender. Instead, she used more nanites to encase herself within a robo-dragon mech, hoping to finish them off. However, after a short battle with Tails, Khan, and Amy, she attempted to escape. Before she could get away, Sonic destroyed her mech and she plumetted until Khan caught her with his nimbus cloud. She was then dumped unceremoniously on the ground and immediately arrested by Antoine and Geoffrey St. John. Almost a week later, Regina was relocated to the Dragon Kingdom, and imprisoned at the bottom of a dry well in Stormtop Village on the orders of Li Yeun as an act of generosity. Though she maintaned her obnoxious attitude, the natural materials and a lack of technology she could manipulate left her without any means of escape. Snively expressed a desire to rescue her that was denied by Dr. Eggman, who felt that the Iron Queen's failure made her an unworthy waste of resources. Despite being abandoned by him, Snively made multiple calls to the Dragon Kingdom to check on her status, however he was forced to claim their relationship was over when put under duress by Dr. Eggman. Rekindled romance In the weeks that passed Regina remained at the bottom of her cell, with only her prison guard Liu Fang for company, who took every opportunity to mock her predicament. One afternoon though, she was shocked to learn he had been knocked out as Snively entered her cell, explaining he had finally betrayed Eggman for good and came to rescue her so they could take over the Eggman Empire together. Regina initially refused however, still bitter at how he ran out on her at the first sign of trouble and went back to serving Eggman, and told him to leave while she struggled to hold back tears. Regina was left to contemplate the offer after Snively departed, and refused to answer Dr. Eggman's questions when he arrived in search of him, getting her attention once the despot admitted his belef that Snively really had loved her up until then. When Snively returned and freed her with the Iron Oni, explaining all he had gone through just to rescue her, Regina finally came around and reconciled with him as she asked her love to destroy Eggman and joined him in the fight. Despite assisting Snively by controlling Monkey Khan with her technomagic to fight Mecha Sally, Regina was caught in explosion of the sabotaged Iron Oni once Dr. Eggman destroyed it with his Egg Beater II battle suit. Captured unconscious, Regina later awoke to find herself released by Eggman, who granted her control of the Eurish Dark Egg Legion chapter near Central City in order to keep her in check, while demoting Hugo Brass. Delighted at the idea of reviving her technomancy cult in the United Federation and all the technology Eggman gave her to potentially use against him, Regina did not realize she had been deceived into believing Snively was allowed to rule at her side; Eggman provided her with an obedient Auto Automaton version of Snively while he secretly imprisoned the real one, certain it would take Regina some time to realize the switch. Abilities Since her early childhood, the Iron Queen has learned to manipulate machines and electronics from her training with Magitek. This enables her to control robots, such as the cyborg Monkey Khan and the half-robian Bunnie. She was also able to manipulate New Mobotrpolis' nanites to form large robot vehicles. Additionally Regina was able to interact with Sonic and Sally in the digital world via her staff after they had tried to liberate NICOLE from her control. Personality Regina is as cruel, manipulative and evil as any other villain on Mobius, but has shown a streak of humanity in her relationship with Snively. Indeed, the very fact she's capable of love makes her far more human than her former leader, Dr. Eggman, and his various incarnations. This being said, her more human side seems reserved for Snively alone. Still, she is far less cold and emotionless than villains like Mammoth Mogul or Dr. Finitevus; she has shown both easy joy and rage and doesn't make much effort to hide her feelings. The Iron Queen is rather sadistic, taking great pleasure in tormenting her foes even to the point of abandoning a battle once she deems a sufficient amount of demoralization has been dealt. This is a trait she shares with the Iron King; however, in both cases shown so far these attempts at 'demoralization' have actually failed miserably despite the villains' confidence that they had succeeded. She enjoys the idea of ruining an enemy emotionally as well as physically. This underestimation of her opponents extends even to Dimitri, whom she's confident to have tricked into some situation detrimental to him and his Dark Egg Legion when, in fact, he seems quite aware of the almost obvious betrayal. All this together shows that the Iron Queen and Iron King are quite arrogant and shortsighted. While preferring to give off the smug, mocking air of someone in control, Regina hates to lose; the moment things are no longer in her favor, she screams, rages and berates everyone around her, including the Iron King and even her supposed lover, Snively. Category:Mechanics Category:Techno-Magic Category:Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie)